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Thursday, 26 February 2015

Salam alaykum dear sirs:
I have spent a great deal of time thinking about the issue of you destroying ancient idolatrous statues. After much careful consideration, I have developed the following well-researched response:

Wednesday, 25 February 2015

Hi, Everyone
I get it. We don't like to admit the hard truths that exist among us. We dislike it even more when something that is deeply entrenched in us is splashed across national TV and swiftly - and rightly - condemned.

However, we need to stop using fancy words to identify the dark stain that resides in many Americans' hearts as a way of hiding what is now obvious within ourselves. We need to stop hiding behind complex concepts.

When Patricia Arquette said that LGBTIQ people (whom she merely called "gays") and people of colour needed to help women, she was being patently heterosexist and racist.

Not comfortable? You're not supposed to be comfortable. Confronting the evil within is never comfortable. Ms Arquette was being a racist. All of those who have been supporting her racist (and heterosexist) assertion are also racist (and heterosexist).

And I am here and now stating that hiding behind the concept of intersectionality, especially because we are "uncomfortable" using the term "racist" is itself an act of white privilege-clinging. Yes, Ms Arquette failed miserably at being intersectional. Yes, our society needs to be intersectional.

The fact remains that Ms Arquette was being a racist. The fact remains that our society is deeply and systemically racist. It is time for us to grow ourselves a collective spine, look this evil in the face, and take steps to destroy it.

Tuesday, 24 February 2015

Trigger Warning: The article excerpts contained below are so white privilege-clinging as to be outright racist and white supremacist.

Eliana Dickerson has taken to TIME to shed a lake of white tears over criticism of Patricia Arquette's racist comments following her speech at the Oscars-So-White. I am copy-pasting huge chunks out of that god-awfully racist piece of trash so that TIME won't be graced with even more page views.

Don’t Tear Down Patricia Arquette for a Well-Intentioned Speech
Eliana Dockterman, TIME
23 February 2015
http://time.com/3718634/oscars-2015-patricia-arquette-feminism

...
But no good deed goes unpunished — especially on social media — and within hours of the ceremony, Arquette was being attacked by people who said she was prioritizing the rights of white women over those of LGBTQ people and people of color. These criticisms are legitimate and deserve to be heard. Still, Arquette’s heart was in the right place and it’s not right to completely dismiss one of feminism’s most visible advocates.
...
There was a lot to criticize at this year’s ceremonies, and the well-meaning Patricia Arquette should rank a lot lower on that list than, for example, Sean Penn.
...
While Gay and others had more nuanced takes on Arquette’s comments — supporting her message while critiquing her phrasing — folks on Twitter are dismissing her entirely, and that’s dangerous. Even while we recognize the problems with her speech, feminists should be careful not to tear down their best and most visible advocates.
...
Love her or hate her, there’s no greater public advocate for feminism in pop culture than Lena Dunham.
...
Different women can choose to express their feminism in different ways. But when women begin to tear down their best, most popular advocates, we hurt our own cause. As Sally Kohn wrote at The New Republic after the Dunham incident: “The minute feminism becomes hypercritical and humorless, it becomes too easy for the mainstream to dismiss our more valid complaints.”

Image: Cartoon divided into six panels, all against natural landscape background of blue sky and green earth. People depicted are two male-appearing persons of approximately the same 19- to 25-year-old age. One is a blonde white wearing short-sleeved salmon-coloured t-shirt, blue jeans, and steel grey foot-gear. The other is a black person with dark hair wearing a ragged sleeveless t-shirt and a pair of ragged long shorts. In the first three panels, the black person is chained to a large ball. In the fourth, he breaks the chains. In the fifth and sixth, the chains and ball are not depicted. Words an actions in panels:

Saturday, 21 February 2015

Religion, Gender, Sexuality, Ethnicity - these are all intrinsic identities from which one cannot separate oneself.

Racism, militant anti-theism, heterosexism, cissexism, sexism, ableism -
these are attitudes. Parting with them might be painful, but it
certainly will not shred the soul as would trying to shed part of one's
own identity would.

Asking someone
to accept the later, as though it were somehow an intrinsic aspect of
someone's identity, while complaining that showing respect for the
former is so PC as to be tiring is a form of privilege-clinging and is
unacceptable.

Sweet Darling,
Wake up. Surely you are hungry,
You are thirsty.
Open those lovely eyes of yours.
Rise with me, come with me
To meet the Light,
So that She may kiss
Our upturned faces
And caress our cheeks
With Her breezy hands.

Come, precious one -
Come greet the Dawn with me.
-Freedom2B

[Image: My photograph of a sunrise in August 2014. 0713 2014.08.11. 07.00]

Mohajir Militancy in Pakistan: Violence and Transformation in the Karachi ConflictNichola KhanCh 3. See also Ch 7, "Conclusion."https://books.google.com/books?id=m2yMAgAAQBAJ

Illegal Migration and Gender in a Global and Historical PerspectiveMarlou Schroverpp 131, 147https://books.google.com/books?id=Qr-329a4MFkC

Violent Belongings: Partition, Gender, and National Culture in Postcolonial IndiaKavita Daiyahttps://books.google.com/books?id=P7a-FuiMcTYCCh 2: class, perceptions of religious and ethnic differences as pretext for Partition, gendered nature of violence surrounding Partition, national identity, the male bodyposs Ch 3Ch 5, possibly beginning with Conclusion on p 180 and then reading on from beginning of chapter

Islam sport and masculinity: Some observations on the experiences of Pakistanis in Pakistan and Bangladeshis in BritainS Fleming, NM Khan, P Duffy, L Dugdale - HPER–Moving around the 21st century, 1994

On Muslim Male Privilege Bina Shah22 February 2015http://binashah.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/on-muslim-male-privilege.html"These are examples of how Muslim men can begin to undo their male privilege - by being flexible, by understanding that their individual cases must match the conditions set by the Quran, that these conditions do not translate to universal circumstances that can then be twisted and justified for anything less than the great spiritual benefit and mercy that God intended them to be. I do not believe that Islam set down rules that men could then use to their advantage, and torture women with for the rest of all eternity."

Prophecy and Masculinities: The Case of the Qur’anic JosephAmanullah De Sondyhttp://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1939-3881.2011.00201.x/abstract

Punjab Under the Mughalshttp://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00080568/00001

South Asian Masculinity and queer identity in the family. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzeyS4RKkfk&t=60m30s

Please accept my apologies for the image. It is the only way that I could convince Facebook to be nice to this post. Just scroll a bit. Until I get a chance to fix the reading images below, click them to get legible sizes. Sorry.

p 16
The Model
Racism
assumed different forms in different countries and historical periods.
In the United States, it appeared with the establishment of a
slave-based economy.

It persisted throughout American history,
and it changed forms in different stages of history. In this chapter, we
develop a model designed to illustrate processes that sustain racial
oppression and to identify changes in forms of racism. This model
focuses on the economic, political, and cultural dimensions of racism.

It
examines each dimension separately and briefly explains how each
interacts with the others. The general view that emerges from this model
is that racial oppression is sustained within an exploitative and
oppressive economic structure. This structure shapes the formation of a
racist culture that functions to reinforce patterns of racial
oppression. The state, operating within this economic and cultural
context, generally supports and legitimizes oppressive relations.
However, its role is the most indeterminate because it is alterable by
social movements, depressions, wars, technological changes, and
international pressures. We begin our analysis with a discussion of the
economic dimension, then proceed to the political and cultural
dimensions. We conclude with a discussion of how the three dimensions
interact.

Now aside from the mountains of evidence that makes someone look a little silly when they claim that those with seemingly endless identity privilege are widely oppressed in society, I am realizing more and more that we have a problem of language precision. Too often, when people are talking about racism or sexism or heterosexism or any other form of oppression, they’re simply referring to when a person was made to feel bad for or about their identity.
...
Yes. Any person of any identity can be an asshole to any person of any other identity. But that doesn’t make it oppression. It doesn’t even make it racism or sexism or heterosexim or any other -ism. There is a profound danger in watering down our discussion of identity by removing any mention of societal power, oppression, and privilege.

As you can see, belonging to one or more category of privilege, especially being a straight, white, middle-class, able-bodied male, can be like winning a lottery you didn't even know you were playing. But this is not to imply that any form of privilege is exactly the same as another, or that people lacking in one area of privilege understand what it's like to be lacking in other areas. Race discrimination is not equal to sex discrimination and so forth.

And listen: Recognizing privilege doesn't mean suffering guilt or shame for your lot in life. Nobody's saying that straight, white, middle-class, able-bodied males are all a bunch of assholes who don't work hard for what they have. Recognizing privilege simply means being aware that some people have to work much harder just to experience the things you take for granted (if they ever can experience them at all).

I know now that I am privileged in many ways. I am privileged as a natural-born white citizen. I am privileged as a cisgender woman. I am privileged as an able-bodied person. I am privileged that my first language is also our national language, and that I was born with an intellect and ambition that pulled me out of the poverty that I was otherwise destined for. I was privileged to be able to marry my way "up" by partnering with a privileged, middle-class, educated male who fully expected me to earn a college degree.

Prejudice, though harmful, is not necessarily systemic and can be committed by anyone. It simply requires one to pre-judge. It does not require its user to have any access to the ruling class or status of whiteness. However, you have to be part of or support the ruling class to wield the power of racism. Those who are not part of the white ruling class, yet support white supremacy of any form, are called agents of white supremacy. They are not white, but benefit in some direct way from empowering and enforcing white supremacy often times on their own people. Historically black overseers and house slaves were bestowed more rights, and ultimately more power during slavery. These were employed agents of white supremacy who oppressed their fellow blacks. This employment was a status. It was a form of racist power that white slave owners gave to black overseers as a way to also instill mistrust within the black community. Prejudice alone, has no real power without the system of control and power to support it.

Sunday, 15 February 2015

This is the first time that I am excited. No, it is not the first time that I have ever been excited in my life. It is, though, the first time in three years that I have remembered some old tree friends of mine, thought of human friends who had become a second family for me, and talked with new friends - and got excited about mixing all of them together in one wild week-end.

In a few short months, I hope to attend the LGBTQ Muslim Retreat for my third year. Each of the two times that I have attended so far, I have brought back with me so much that is priceless. I fell in love with a whole new "family" of trees. I am indeed a tree-lover. *smile* I met people whom I had only known online. Some became for me an instant new family. I learned so much - about me, about others, about religion, about the world around me.

Retreat provides approximately three days of scheduled and spontaneous opportunities to explore Islam and our various ways of interacting with ourselves and Islam. In some cases, our physical health and mental health are explored. Various folk discuss the Qur'an, Islamic history, religious diversity. Some of us discuss relationships and sex. Others play card games. Others yet have wild discussions that we daren't have back at home. We have the chance to participate in congregational worship in a way that, for many of us, is a blissful release from the tight strictures to which we have been bound back home.

Have you read the Harry Potter books? Have you watched the movies? Believe me when I say that, for me, stepping onto the bus or van in Detroit is like stepping onto the Hogwarts Express (I live in Michigan). The hair on the arms rises in goosebumps. Sleep is pushed away by excitement. Knowing that others are on similar trips around the world, realising that already, we are sharing similar experiences, is thrilling.

Of course, at some point one's bottomside does get sore and sleep feels like that long-lost lover whom one misses so much that one could cry. But what does it matter when we are on our way to a place that is as magickal as Hogwarts - right?

The LGBTQ Muslim Retreat is, above all, a place where we can be precisely who we are, in all of our myriad shades and hues. And this is what makes Retreat so important. You see, many of us come from situations in which we cannot be ourselves. Shoving ourselves into tight, dark boxes - this goes beyond a mere closet - can become fatal. These precious few days in which we can be wholly ourselves, unquestioned, is sometimes a thin dividing line between surviving that stress or not surviving. For others among us, it is essential to our mental or emotional health in other ways. In fact, some of us derive benefits from Retreat that have nothing to do with the intersection of our religion and sexuality.

I invite you now to action. Whether you are an LGBTQ Muslim or not, you have something to offer. To my siblings in religion/culture who are LGBTQ, I invite you to this Retreat which, for me, has been magickal. Sign up, even if you are unsure that you can afford to (apply for a scholarship here). To my Allies who are not Muslim or who are straight/cisgender, I invite you to support us all. If you know a Retreater, communicate your support to that person. If you pray, do pray for us. In addition, if you are able, I invite you to donate to the Retreat so that those of us who cannot afford the costs can attend, anyway. Anything that you can do or give is so welcome, so needed, so appreciated.

The Changing Scene of Amazigh poetry Michael Peyronhttp://www.ircam.ma/doc/revueasing/peyron_asinag4_5fr.pdf
"Looking
back over the past twenty years, it is obvious that the basic,
complementary genres izlan and timawayin still have a bright future. The
same applies to the traditional Middle-Atlas ahidus dance, which the
local Berbers indulge in whenever the occasion arises, and in which many
of the izlan are performed. However, there are some obvious nuances.
There is, for example, a noticeable difference between a put-on show at
the annual Imilchil brides’ festival, when tired-looking Ayt Hadiddou
participants perform half-heartedly in broad daylight for the benefit of
foreign tourists, and a spontaneous summer evening ahiduas performed
round the camp-fire by shepherds and their girlfriends in some forgotten
nook of Jbel ‘Ayyachi’."

Soumia Aitelhaj ’10 Rescues a Poetry of Morocco
Jane whitehead, Boston College Magazine
http://bcm.bc.edu/issues/fall_2010/linden_lane/village-voices.html
The young leave seeking economic opportunity, as climate change and overpopulation have led to desertification of previously arable lands, and as pollution from mining waste has further devastated agriculture. The dwindling numbers of villagers subsist on farming and carpet weaving, and most rely on aid from relatives in urban areas.

When the younger Imazighen move away, a critical bond is broken between the generations: The village elders are passing, and with them goes a vast trove of myths and village tales, handed down through generations, celebrating the spiritual and practical aspects of a life close to nature. A single poem “can go on for three or four hours,” says [Soumia] Aitelhaj, who loves the “rawness” of the poetry and the way it “transforms into song and dance.” This is what Aitelhaj wants to preserve....Aitelhaj returned from the trip with a sense of Moroccans’ continuing discrimination against Imazighen, and awareness of a pro-Amazigh movement that is growing among the young and educated. She experienced prejudice firsthand: When she spoke Tamazight in banks and shops, the usual response was, “Why can’t you speak Arabic?” (Aitelhaj is fluent in Arabic as well as in English and French.) But she says she also had to overcome “outsider” status among the Amazigh. When she and her cousin traveled to her native village, she had to obtain permission from the elders for her work. “In my region, it’s hard to find a word for poetry, so they have a hard time understanding what I want to do,” says Aitelhaj. It took a couple of weeks sitting with the local women, drinking tea and watching them weave, before they would allow themselves to be photographed with her. One very elderly poet let her film a few minutes of chanting on a camera Aitelhaj borrowed from her uncle.

Monday, 2 February 2015

May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make Her face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. And may God give you peace in your going out and in your coming in, in your lying down and your rising up, in your labor and in your leisure, in your laughter and in your tears until you come to stand before Her on that day in which there is no sunset, no dawning, only eternal life forevermore.-adapted from Robert Schuler